I always wake very early. Ever since I was a child, I have greeted the day alone in a quiet house before others have opened their eyes and begun to stumble around, stirring the stillness with their snuffling and shuffling and banging. It is in these moments before the rest of the house wakes that I feel I am living my most real life.

I have always shared my home and life with dogs and learned at a young age that I had to lie still and not change my breathing upon waking if I wanted to sit in that moment of realness uninterrupted. The dogs hear or feel the slightest shift in my movement and breath when I wake. It feels, sometimes, like they have been waiting for me to wake and with the slightest wiggle of my toe or sniffle as I wake, they are given permission to stir as well and they intentionally and joyfully break my precious moment with thumping tails and slurpy kisses. As the dreams of the night are swept away by their wagging tails and my illusion of a peaceful and solitary existence evaporates with them, I smile and crawl from my bed, stretch and crack my back and knees, slip on my shoes and wade through the wiggles and yips and smiles and open the door for them. I let them out to zoom and let the sunrise and bird song in. The sounds and smells of the garden seep into my bedroom and brain and I, like I did the day before and will hopefully do tomorrow, accept my place in the house and family and I contribute to the noise and I get lost in the river of a shared existence, forgetting the fleeting moments of silence, precious solitude and stillness of the morning house.